Overly Content
\r\nImam Ibn Ataillah said, "The source of every disobedience, indifference, and passion is self-satisfaction. The source of every obedience, vigilance, and virtue is dissatisfaction with one's self. It is better for you to keep company with an ignorant man dissatisfied with himself than to keep company with a learned man satisfied with himself."
\r\nIn our day, there is an urgency to root out the feeling of shame. There are self-help books to show how to excise this out of the soul. But dissatisfaction with oneself is the very thing that causes people to reflect and re-evaluate, which is requisite for spiritual success. Shame and dissatisfaction can be moral savers. (Shame is different from low self-esteem, in which one feels contempt for himself.)
\r\nSidi Ahmad al-Zarruq said that there are three signs of being overly content with the soul. First is being sensitive to one's own rights and indifferent to the rights of others. In Islam, one's responsibilities preponderate over one's rights. The second sign is ignoring one's own faults, as if he has none, while being preoccupied with the fault of others. A poet once said, "A contended eye does not see faults." The third sign is giving oneself too much leniency.
\r\n Compiled From:
\r\n \"Purification of the Heart\" - Hamza Yusuf, p. 160